THE CRYSTAL PALACB. 419 



like the Champs Elyse*es of Paris as possible. Wherever the 

 influence of that educated society is felt, the old buildings are 

 relentlessly destroyed ; vast hotels, like barracks, and rows of 

 high, square-windowed dwelling-houses, thrust themselves 

 forward to conceal the hated antiquities of the great cities of 

 France and Italy. Gay promenades, with fountains and stat- 

 ues, prolong themselves along the quays once dedicated to 

 commerce ; ball-rooms and theatres rise upon the dust of 

 desecrated chapels, and thrust into darkness the humility of 

 domestic life. And when the formal street, in all its pride of 

 perfumery and confectionery, has successfully consumed its 

 way through the wrecks of historical monuments, and con- 

 summated its symmetry in the ruin of all that once prompted 

 to reflection, or pleaded for regard, the whitened city is praised 

 for its splendour, and the exulting inhabitants for their patri- 

 otism patriotism which consists in insulting their fathers 

 with forgetfulness, and surrounding their children with temp- 

 tation. 



I am far from intending my words to involve any disrespect- 

 ful allusion to the very noble improvements in the city of Paris 

 itself, lately carried out under the encouragement of the Em- 

 peror. Paris, in its own peculiar character of bright mag- 

 nificence, had nothing to fear, and everything to gain, from 

 the gorgeous prolongations of the Rue Rivoli. But I speak 

 of the general influence of the rich travellers and proprietors 

 of Europe on the cities which they pretend to admire, or en- 

 deavour to improve. I speak of the changes wrought during 

 my own lifetime, on the cities of Venice, Florence, Geneva, 

 Lucerne, and chief of all on Rouen : a city altogether inesti- 

 mable for its retention of mediaeval character in the infinitely 

 varied streets in which one half of the existing and inhabited 

 houses date from the 15th or early 16th century ; and the 

 only town left in France in which the effect of old French do- 

 mestic architecture can yet be seen in its collective groups. 

 But when I was there, this last spring, I heard that these 

 noble old Norman houses are all, as speedily as may be, to be 

 stripped of the dark slates which protected their timbers, and 

 deliberately whitewashed over all their sculptures and orna- 



